For Family Home Evening before Halloween we carved our family pumpkin. We asked the girls what kind of picture they wanted on our pumpkin... and they asked for a pumpkin! So that's what we did!
Kyle, the pumpkin carving master, hard at work on the pumpkin that mommy drew:
Minnette and Aurelle helped clean out the pumpkin and had fun playing with the guts while Daddy carved away:
Jovi was very happy just to watch from the comfort of Mommy's ever-shrinking lap:
And here you have the beautiful final product (a jack-o-lantern of a jack-o-lantern?? Whatever, the girls werethrilled!):
All lit up and spooky:
The creative masterminds:
The Willman family pumpkin 2012!
(Seriously in love with- and cracking up at- Kyle's face in this picture!)
Last October we made a family trip to Hee Haw Farms- a local pumpkin patch with tons of kid and family oriented activities. It was so great- we were there for practically the entire day, and they had so many fun things to do- we didn't even get to do them all!
We started out our trip with a good long play in the corn box. Our girls are HUGE sand box fans, so obviously, this was a total winner:
And just in case you wondering: corn kernels are waaay more uncomfortable than sand when getting them stuck in your shoes and/or items of clothing! Ouch!
Kyle and Minnette had a lot of fun having duck races using water pumps:
There were a lot of animals at this farm, including a couple of GINORMOUS pigs...
... And one very tired looking mommy pig. I think I would be exhausted if I had 10-12 babies climbing on and feeding from me all day, too! It was quite the sight to see, that's for sure.
There were chickens to pet:
and chase:
Baby pigs to corner:
And even calves to snuggle (is that not one of the sweetest things you've ever seen?!):
They had a fun pig chase for 2-5 year olds. The first three kids to hug a pig won a prize, and Minnette was actually the third one to hug a pig- it was just too bad the judges didn't see! So after this we decided to all go get ice cream to celebrate Minnette hugging a pig!
Minnette and Daddy on the potato sack slide:
Aurelle was originally hesitant to go down, so we were so excited when she finally decided to go down with Mommy and Minnette!
They had a tractor ride that everyone got to have a turn on:
Sharing a ride on the horse tire swing:
And we didn't get any pictures, but we also went on a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and back, though we ended up not even getting a pumpkin since they were cheaper at the grocery store!
Family picture with a tractor: A farm field trip must:
They had pony rides for $1, and Minnette decided that she wanted to go. Here she is giving a lady her dollar:
She was a little nervous at first and wanted me to hold her hand, but after a few seconds she was able to ride the pony all by herself!
Minnette on her very first pony ride- she loved it!:
This was such a fun family date- one that we will most definitely be repeating next year (and the year after!), we had such a blast!
We absolutely love being so close to campus (though, technically we actually live on campus) that we can walk directly across the street for an awesome homecoming parade view/spot.
And a big thank you to Pinterest for inspiring this!
It literally took about two minutes to make, and these girls made out like absolute candy bandits. Minnette and Aurelle totally worked it, too. Minnette smiled and waved like a little Miss America for the entire duration of the parade, while Aurelle strictly dedicated herself to candy recovery: picking up as many stray pieces as she could!
At first we were feeling kind of bad for the families with kids that were right next to us because everyone in the parade was throwing their candy straight to us and basically ignoring everyone else... until we realized that our neighbors were actually totally lucking out- seeing as the candy throwers missed at least half the time (but would keep throwing until they made it in)! This box was around 3/4 of the way FULL by the time the parade was over. And not just candy: T-shirts, balls, toothbrushes... you name it! We ended up giving away at least half of the candy to anyone who would take it.
If you ever plan on attending a parade (with kids, though... because, where this is super funny and adorable with little kids, it might not be as cute if you are not under the age of 12) I highly recommend making one of these... everyone in the parade absolutely LOVED it and we even got more than one loud speaker shout-out from floats passing by. The girls had such a blast- we will definitely be doing this again next year!
One of those stay-at-home kind of days where you don't even bother putting your 17 month old back in her clothes after stripping her down for lunch and putting her down for a nap?
Well, sometimes this is what you will get for the rest of the afternoon:
While we had originally planned a family field trip (this was back in September) for our 'A is for apple' preschool unit to pick apples from a local apple orchard (which we found out when we got there- ended up not having ANY apples this year- I know, super sad!), Kyle thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of passing Cabela's on our way home. Picking apples... walking around Cabela's... practically the same thing, right? Ha ha. We decided to go ahead seeing as we now had the day free, and Kyle doesn't get to make it there to look around very often and the girls always love looking at the giant aquariums, feeding the fish and all the fun things there are to look at and play with while we walk around!
We found these pink cowgirl hats, and the girls wanted to try them on.... they make some super-cute cowgirls!!
I love that you can see how Aurelle looks up to Minnette in these pictures... she always wants to make sure she is doing the same thing!
I'm sure you can guess that with three girls ages 1 to 4, we have a fair amount of silliness that occurs in our home throughout the day! Here is a fairly accurate example of the type of silliness I am talking about:
Listening to the Beatles. Spinning. Playing a straw like a whistle. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
One afternoon, while making dinner, Minnette and Aurelle were enjoying a brief episode of "quiet time" (a common practice around our house. Pick a book, sit on the couch, and read it quietly. It is what has gotten us through many-a-so-called "rough-patch" during the day- especially that time after naps when Mommy is trying to make dinner!) and Minnette had out one of her current favorites: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
This particular book, she can just look at the pictures and (for the most part) quote you what it says on that page. Here she is "reading" the story:
I was especially glad that I captured her singing the ABC's at the end... mostly because 1) it's cute. and 2) she'll probably soon figure out that it goes "ABCD" not "A-B-D-D" and that she's supoosed to say "LMNOP" not "N-O-N-O-P" and I didn't want to forget the way she currently sings it!
On September 5th we found out at a gender check ultrasound that we are going to be having our first baby boy! We are so excited!!
We picked the name Waits Avin Willman
It was a little hard to wrap my head around at first- Kyle and I were almost just expecting to hear the words "It's another girl!", that it totally caught us by surprise that it wasn't! So, in case you were wondering, THIS is what it looks like to be having a boy at 16 weeks and 2 days:
My first "It's a boy" truffle from my doctor's office (I get one of these amazing truffles after every appointment now! They are sooo good- I always eat mine before I even get home!)
Baby Waits at 16 weeks:
It is definitely a boy! No doubts here!
Cute little baby feet:
We are so excited to be welcoming a sweet little boy into our family, and the girls are SO excited to be having a baby brother! Now I get to start buying sweet little man clothes to put him in!!
After giving her a bath one night, Kyle sent Jovi out to the living room with a little hand towel wrapped around her. She thought it was the best thing ever and walked around stomping and laughing... I think she knew just how cute she was!
